Site to reveal teachers' discipline

The state wants parents to have easier access to records about professional wrongdoing.

March 3, 2007|By Leslie Postal, Sentinel Staff Writer

Florida parents soon will be able to search a database to find out if their child's teacher has been disciplined by state officials, the Florida Department of Education announced Friday.

The new online database should be ready by the start of the next school year and should "help keep our children safe," Education Commissioner Jeanine Blomberg said.

The Web site will list teachers who have been found guilty of professional wrongdoing and had action taken against their Florida teaching certificate. That action could include a reprimand, probation, suspension or revocation of their teaching license.

That information already is public and shared with Florida's 67 school districts. But it will be easier for parents to find once the new Web site, MyFloridaTeacher.com, is up and running.

Using what has become one of the watchwords of Gov. Charlie Crist's administration, Blomberg said the Web site would make teacher discipline more "transparent."

It also should help ensure that teachers who've lost their Florida licenses for misconduct in one district are not hired in another, she added.

The site will not list teachers who were referred to the state -- in recent years, more than 3,000 have been -- but had no action taken against their Florida teacher certificate. It also will not list disciplinary actions that might have been taken by local school districts.

The effort is to be similar to Vermont's, where the state Department of Education Web site lists teachers who have been disciplined, officials said.

Florida officials have not yet determined exactly what information will be on the Web site or how far back the discipline data will go.

In recent years, more than 3,000 Florida teachers a year have been referred to the state for possible discipline, with 3,307 referred so far this fiscal year. The Education Department could not say, however, how many of those cases led to findings of wrongdoing.

Teachers in the past have been disciplined for sexual misconduct, coming to school drunk, presenting fraudulent credentials when they were hired or using excessive force when disciplining children, among other issues, said Marian Lambeth, bureau chief of the department's Bureau of Professional Practices.

Debbie Bornstein, an Orange County parent, said looking at teacher discipline records wasn't something she had ever thought about. But if the Web site was publicized, "I'm sure I would take a look at it."

She might use it particularly to check on high-school teachers. The elementary and middle schools are smaller, she said, and she felt like she knew all her children's teachers. But her oldest is now in high school, where because of the size and the number of teachers each student has, there is less of that personal knowledge.

Mike Cahill, president of the Orange Classroom Teachers Association, the local teachers union, wondered how useful it would be to parents. Most teachers disciplined by the state seem to end up losing their licenses, so they "wouldn't be teachers anymore," making information about their cases of limited value, he said.

The department, however, thinks it is important to make the public information more accessible, Lambeth said.

"If a parent finds out if a teacher has been disciplined, that's just knowledge for them," she added.

The Florida Education Association, the state teachers union, said it was "taken by surprise" by the department's announcement Friday.

"We've got a lot of questions about it," spokesman Mark Pudlow said. "We're trying to figure out what the problem is they're trying to solve."